Two Peas in a Pod
by Severuslovesme
Summary: Or Why Cuddy Hated Being On Crutches. Cuddy breaks her ankle. House enjoys the reversal of fortunes. Hilarity ensues.


**Day 1: **

"Well, well, well," House said, walking through her open office door.

Leaning on his good leg he lifted his cane to point at her triumphantly.

"It seems as though the crippler has become the cripple…eee."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. He clearly took that as a sign of encouragement.

"Only you would take a header down the stairs, get fitted for a cast, and return to work the same day."

"Someone has to stop you from sending the hospital to the poor house with legal fees. And from killing your patients, of course." She tried to sit up a little straighter.

"Yeah, well, now you'll have to catch me, gimpy."

Cuddy shot a resigned glance at her foot, which was propped discretely on a stool in front of her chair.

House prowled the office, stopping to manhandle her crutches and declare the workmanship "shoddy."

"House," she said, in the tone of voice that he was beginning to learn meant business.

"You have a case, so go save lives instead of ruining mine." She punctuated this order with a stare, and tried to ignore his satisfied grin as he limped out of her office.

**Day 2: **

Cuddy stumbled into her office and threw her crutches onto the couch, hopping ungracefully to her desk. She sat down and put her head in her hands briefly before opening her desk drawer and rummaging through the contents.

Unable to find what she was looking for she searched a little bit more meticulously, eventually pulling out a small white note.

She felt her jaw drop as she read the message written there, in House's familiar chicken scratch scrawl.

_Cuddy – Thought what with your opposition to narcotics and the fact that we need you sharp to prevent the hospital from going up in flames that you wouldn't mind if I borrowed your drugs. _

_Your friendly neighborhood diagnostician_

This was it. She was actually going to kill him.

Storming out into the hallway she found her prey with an ease that he was soon going to regret, she could promise.

House was sitting atop the nurses station, legs swinging and lollipop firmly in hand, looking just as happy as she would expect for someone who'd stolen his boss's entire bottle of percocet.

"House, give me back the drugs." She didn't bother smiling. This was not a friendly matter; her ankle had been hurting since five minutes into the board meeting and that had been four hours ago.

"Can't. Flushed 'em down the toilet. I'm concerned that you're addicted. I want you to detox." He gave the lollipop a decisive lick.

Cuddy flushed. "I do not believe for one second that you threw them out. It's not in your nature to waste perfectly good narcotics."

"Just try to go one week without the drugs, ok?" He gave her an earnest smile and she remembered an incident when these tables had been turned, though obviously the situations were completely different.

She opened her mouth to reply and watched his eyes gleam in anticipation, and decided that she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. With a final pointed glance she returned to her office to the sound of him shouting, "I just want to help you!"

When she hunted Wilson down later to force him to write her a new scrip, she ignored his comments on becoming the neighborhood drug dealer.

**Day 5: **

House was waiting for her in her office when she returned from the clinic.

"I was thinking of starting a cripple support group. Want to be Vice President?" He said by way of greeting.

She moved further into the room, navigating her crutches around the perilous chair and coffee table combination. Collapsing in her desk chair with relief she looked at House, his long frame sprawled carelessly on her couch.

"If it means you voluntarily submit to any form of therapy, no matter how hokey, then I wholeheartedly support it."

He made a face at that. "I was thinking more of me offering my expertise to others suffering from this affliction. You know, really give back to the community."

"By telling them they're all idiots and should take copious amounts of drugs and stop being cheerful, no doubt."

"Well, I've always heard honesty is the best policy."

**Day 8: **

While listening to Dr. Saunders drone on about why his (clearly superfluous) imaging scanner was an absolute necessity to the smooth running of the hospital, Cuddy surreptitiously popped a pain pill.

A small movement caught her eye and she turned slightly to see House (encouraged to attend this board meeting on pain of grievous bodily injury) mirroring her action.

Wilson shot her a look that she studiously ignored.

**Day 9:**

Cuddy was doing her bi-weekly round of all the departments (and if anyone, like oh, say, House, suggested that she spent too much time in peds she would flatly deny it) and her cast fascinated the kids.

A nurse found some markers and they all signed it, writing their names and drawing flowers or puppies or suns or things that were completely unidentifiable.

Now when she looks at her foot she smiles instead of grimacing.

**Day 11: **

Despite his assertion that really, he could handle it, she was called in to consult on House's most recent case due to hormone imbalances that couldn't quite be explained by any of the current theories.

When she spotted the correct diagnosis after an hour of looking through the chart, House was clearly impressed.

"I think being a cripple means my brains are rubbing off on you!" He yelled this in front of the whole clinic, so she just rolled her eyes and went back to her office.

**Day 17:**

After two weeks and change on the crutches her armpits were begging for a break. Cuddy requisitioned a wheelchair and spent most of the day holed up in her office, catching up on paperwork.

House heard about her wheelchair though, because he was House and he had some gossip connection that she couldn't figure out. Possibly the janitor who liked him. Strange man.

He burst into her office a little after 11 pm, little kid grin on his face. He'd saved his patient not four hours previously, and was obviously still on his post-successful-case high.

Leaning his chin on his cane he trained his bright eyes on her.

"Wanna race?"

"What?" Cuddy didn't have to fake her confusion.

"You, me, epic showdown. Good versus evil. The hallway outside the morgue, for its emptiness. Also for its creepiness."

Cuddy shook her head, but smiled involuntarily.

"I'll do two extra clinic hours this week." He was wheedling now, which was interesting.

"Five." No reason not to take him for all he's worth, if this means that much to him, she thought.

"Three, and we go now."

So they went.

Cuddy won the first race so House insisted they go best of three. He won the second but they both got paged to the ER before they could determine, once and for all, which was the superior wheelchair racer.

She hadn't had so much fun in months, though she would never admit it to House, just like she was keeping quiet on who exactly had crashed into the careful arrangement of morgue equipment.

**Days 19-25: **

When she walked into the cafeteria at 12:45, determined to have a small salad with low fat dressing to combat the weight gain that inactivity was sure to bring on, Dr. Chase was waiting patiently to carry her tray.

At her clearly baffled look he explained that he had lost a bet with House over their patient's correct diagnosis, and as penance had to help her carry her tray in the cafeteria for the rest of the week.

When she expressed confusion as to the terms of the bet Chase had no elucidation to offer her.

**Day 26: **

When she was just doing one last round of the hospital before heading out for the night Cuddy found House still in his office, watching the Wizard of Oz on his small black and white TV.

He didn't comment when she hobbled into his office, just moved over to make room for her on the couch.

**Day 29: **

Cuddy adjusted the hem of her evening gown to cover her cast and leaned back in her chair, trying to enjoy the orchestra. Eyeing the sizable crowd, she cursed herself again for scheduling this hospital benefit, though it wasn't like she could have known last February that she would take a header down the stairs sometime in September.

So now she was stuck, unable to dance, unable to drink due to her beloved but flawed pain pills, and in a less than ideal position to schmooze potential donors.

She squirmed in her chair, trying to get comfortable. While scanning the room she spotted House (encouraged to attend tonight's event by threats of grievous bodily injury) across the room, sitting near the bar with Wilson and clearly in a full-on sulk. He caught her eye and grimaced, and she smiled back.

Over the next three hours there was a consistent, rotating crowd at her table. Donors and friends all stopped by to enquire after her ankle and how it was healing. She told funny crutches stories, showed off her decorated cast and praised the hospital's orthopedics department.

When the night was over she thought that her broken ankle might have been the best thing ever to happen to Princeton-Plainsboro.

**Day 33: **

In between her meetings with the Head Nurse and the applicant for the open cardiothoracic fellowship, Cuddy went up to the third floor to have her cast removed.

Declining to keep it (even though she was secretly sorry to lose the kid's drawings, it was just too gross) she walked out of the office with a bounce in her newly renewed step.

A few steps later she had to sit down because her ankle was not quite up to bouncing just yet.

**Night 33: **

"Does this mean we can resume having very athletic sex rather than the tamer version?" House was rubbing his hands together like a kid in a candy store.

She shot a look at his leg. "That depends entirely on you."

"Well, lets do it, then."

Hand in hand they limped towards the bedroom.


End file.
